USAirways has hung on this long, has been able to find lenders despite continous losses, and survived SWA at Philadelphia. So maybe Lakefield's optimism is sound.

But I still have my doubts though. I figured that Southwest could still push USAirways over the edge and that was before I heard about the chaos Delta plans to unleash on the rest of industry. Fares are going down even further perhaps to levels below what USAirways may have contemplated just a couple of weeks ago. They cannot really ask their employees for cuts anytime soon.

For the most part, I think it's pretty much in the hands of the employees.

I don't like, nor am I defending the cuts that management felt they had to make, but that aside, if any disgruntled employees take it out on the airline (and its Customers) by CHAOS, sickouts, strikes, sabotage, or intentionally mis-routing or mis-treating Customer baggage, they'd be pretty much ensuring their own demise.

The "Philly Christmas" escapade didn't win them any love and affection from those inconvenienced, and those lost Customers and those that are "booking away" are lost revenue that they sorely need.

ALL views, opinions expressed are mine ONLY and are NOT representative of those shared by Southwest Airlines Co.

...the chaos Delta plans to unleash on the rest of industry. Fares are going down even further perhaps to levels below what USAirways may have contemplated just a couple of weeks ago.

In reality, Delta has only lowered what had been rapacious last-minute fares that virtually noboby paid, and apparently removed Saturday night stay restrictions from their apex fares, meaning those who were previously shut out of lower fares common to all airlines will no longer need to be creative in the ticketing games they play (back-to-back ticketing) to beat the airlines at their own games -- which becomes an accounting cost burden to airlines.

What Delta's move means is that they (and other legacies who have followed their lead) will no longer need to concede countless numbers of "walk-up" pax to the LCCs, inasmuch as they have at long last matched the LCCs in pricing at the end of the spectrum where it truly matters. And the LCC-matching walk-up fares announced by Delta are well above loss-leader levels, even for a legacy. To me Delta's pricing "chaos" (call it that if you insist) is a case of a legacy finally choosing to chase good money after good money and, who knows, maybe even kicking their addiction to chasing good money after bad money.

Tango-Bravo..Thanks for clearing that up, saving me the time on that correction, it is driving me crazy that people aren't grasping the whole DL pricing concept. Inadvertantly, they are actually raising or holding fares for the majority of passengers who generally don't know better and buy advanced purchase anyway. But it is a good concept for DL's bottomline and they get the media flack to make the passengers feel convienced that they are saving that 50%.

About Lakefields comments..
That is the first postitive thing I have heard yet, of course now that the union contracts are thrown-out and the scare tactics are not needed; he is all the sudden trying to sound optimistic to lure in the investors.

But I still have my doubts though. I figured that Southwest could still push USAirways over the edge and that was before I heard about the chaos Delta plans to unleash on the rest of industry.

My gut tells me that is not WN's intention. If US were to enter Ch. 7, the insuing chaos would close as many doors as it would open. For now, WN should be establishing as firm a foothold as possible in US cities while making sure US doesn't fall apart. A sick analogy would be a parasite on a host... killing the host does nothing productive.

That is the first postitive thing I have heard yet, of course now that the union contracts are thrown-out and the scare tactics are not needed; he is all the sudden trying to sound optimistic to lure in the investors.

It's easily possible that US could survive, they just need some major steps to rationalize their opperations. Labor costs are not everything; higher aircraft utilization, simplified fleet structure, and simplified fare structure could do them very well.

GE has solved their major problem (running out of cash) and they have made some miniscule opperational profits in Q3-Q4. They need to establish a viable long-term business model quickly, or else the WN parasite will just keep sucking and sucking and sucking... I like both WN and US, I just think US has lots of improvement to do because they are basically handing their business over to WN.

While the word "chaos" may be a bit strong to describe what Delta is doing, the consensus view (among financial analysts) is that fare levels are going to drop and losses in 2005 will be worse than projected because of the downward pressure on revenue. However if Delta and competitors who follow along end up stimulating more last-minute business traffic, then who knows what the actual result may be.

For USAirways that could mean that business plans and underlying forecasts presented to a bankruptcy judge within the past few weeks may no longer be viable.